This Is London cover art

This Is London

Life and Death in the World City

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

This Is London

By: Ben Judah
Narrated by: Joe Jameson
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2016, formerly known as the Samuel Johnson Prize.

This is the new London: an immigrant city. Over one-third of Londoners were born abroad, with half arriving since the millennium. This has utterly transformed the capital, for better and for worse.

Ben Judah is an acclaimed foreign correspondent, but here he turns his reporter's gaze on home, immersing himself in the hidden world of London's immigrants to reveal the city in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers and witch-doctors. From the backrooms of its mosques, Tube tunnels and nightclubs to the frontlines of its streets, Judah has supped with oligarchs and spent nights sleeping rough, worked on building sites and talked business with prostitutes; he's heard stories of heartbreaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion.

This is London explodes fossilised myths and offers a fresh, exciting portrait of what it's like to live, work, fall in love, raise children, grow old and die in London now. Simultaneously intimate and epic, here is a compulsive and deeply sympathetic book on this dizzying world city from one of our brightest new writers.

2016, Baille Gifford Prize, Long-listed

©2018 Ben Judah (P)2018 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd
Europe Great Britain Travel Writing & Commentary Urban Western Europe Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing City England
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Peace, Love, and Petrol Bombs cover art
Chasing Shadows cover art
My Revolutions cover art
The Social Distance Between Us cover art
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning cover art
Protest cover art
Hold Still cover art
Wasted cover art
Unlawful Killings cover art
Witness cover art
One Day I Will Write About This Place cover art
The Black Album cover art
The Murder Bag cover art
Follow the Money cover art
A Certain Idea of France cover art
The Bricks That Built the Houses cover art

What listeners say about This Is London

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    26
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Well researched, truthful and brave

I loved reading all the information, truth of the hidden London which I suspected existed but never saw with my own eyes.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The change in London since I lived there in 1960.

Way the different cultures were described, using accents,and descriptions of dress,brought the characters to life.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Painful Read

I can’t say I enjoyed this book, it was very painful listening but at the same time I couldn’t put it down. Ben Judah admits the complete transformation of our society and instead of reacting like a little Hitler (Farage, Douglas Murray etc) he dives in an explores the World of the new Londoners. It makes bleak reading these people have made very painful journeys and are carrying scars that are still having a knock on effect. My criticism of the book is that there was hardly a happy story in it at all, yet I know of many very happy successful immigrant families with tighter more loving communities than those of the native population.
Our Governments use of the immigrant card is disgraceful and eye openers like this book will hopefully do something to build bridges across a divided London.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful